MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Prof. Kate Jolly Professor of Public Health and Primary Care Public Health Building School of Health & Population Sciences University of Birmingham Edgbaston Birmingham Medical Research: What is the background for this study? Response: The UK is amongst 32 countries worldwide with evidence of iodine deficiency. Severe iodine deficiency during pregnancy is associated with a lower intelligence quotient (IQ) and developmental abnormalities in the children; these are reversible by iodine supplementation during pregnancy. However, the effects of mild or moderate iodine deficiency during pregnancy are less clear as there are no high quality trials of supplementation that have reported the outcome of child IQ. However, in two studies in the UK and Australia, nine year old children of women who had a urinary iodine concentration suggestive of mild iodine deficiency during their pregnancy exhibited reduced educational outcomes and decreased IQ scores compared to children of iodine replete mothers. Recent research from the UK suggests that the country has become mildly iodine deficient. Many countries address their iodine deficiency by programmes of adding iodine to salt and some recommend that pregnant women take iodine supplements. Neither of these occur in the UK, although some commonly used pregnancy supplements already include iodine. Controversy about the need for supplementation in pregnancy, the ethics of undertaking a trial in which women would be randomly allocated to have iodine supplements, or not, and the high cost of following-up and assessing large numbers of children makes a trial unlikely. (more…)